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Pop Cinema, in conjunction with Something Weird Video, presents a new series of exploitation double features in the form or their new series Racy Reels From The Something Weird Vault! Here’s a look at this installment…

Female Chauvinists:

This 1976 film starts at a protest where Ms. Fulla Bull, the trollish leader of a group of militant feminists, gets her troops all riled up in a parking lot, much to the amusement of a photographer named Cecil and the dismay of a shunned crossdresser. Cecil takes it upon himself to expose these women as the lesbians that he believes them all to be, or so he tells lady friend Boopsie (the super-stacked Roxanne Brewer). He needs her help, see. She agrees to join up with Bull’s group and head off to her training camp where she meets a few more of Bull’s latest recruits (look for Candy Samples, Debbie McGuire, Eve Orlon, Linda York and the lovely Uschi Digard amongst this crew) where she learns that, yeah… some of them are lesbians (or at the very least Uschi’s character is).

Eventually Lucy’s boyfriend Vince (Rick Dillon), pretending to be a deaf/mute, makes his way into the camp where he’s taken on as a handyman… but of course, with that many horny women around it’s only a matter of time until he’s doing more than just hammering nails. When Bull finds out he’s infiltrated their ranks, she decides the only suitable punishment is castration but it’s decided instead by the other girls that rather than cut of his junk, they’ll keep him around to study. This basically means he’s kept on board as a fuck toy.

Will Boopsie and Vince make it out of Bull’s camp alive to tell the tale?

Directed by Jourdan Alexander under the Jay Jackson moniker, Female Chauvinists features a lot of nicely shot and energetic girl on girl action but a fair bit of hetero sex too. It’s also got some genuinely amusing comedic moments inside, such as a dream sequence where Uschi leads a group of the girls on a daring mission wherein the robe a sperm bank. It’s all fairly primitive and goofy on a technical level, but so too is it colorful and entertaining. The fact that it’s got as many vintage hotties in it as it does certainly doesn’t hurt, although we probably didn’t need to see Fulla Bull get in on the action in the later part of the film. But hey, we’re not here to discriminate.

The film was also released on DVD in Germany in a softcore version under the alternate title Farm Der Superhexen! The version of the movie included on this release runs 1:17, the DVD-r that Something Weird Video released on their own runs approximately 1:22, and obviously there are some differences worth discussing.

The SWV DVD-R release of Female Chauvinists opens with a title card that says ‘Female Chauvinists… coming soon’ which then segues into a quick opening scene where the old lady that leads the protestors gives a quick speech to some of her crew. After that, we cut to the Gower Street sign and the scene with the protestors, the photographer and the transvestite. The Blu-ray opens with footage of traffic and boats and then some kids roller-skating through the suburbs (with some music added overtop that is not from the original film) before then cutting to the quick speech with the old lady, it omits title card. There have also been some sound effects added, such as camera noises in the scene at the opening protest where the photographer creeps up behind the woman and shoots pictures of her legs/ass and for the subsequent pictures he takes later in the scene.

During the opening credits, the music on both releases matches until we get to the ‘Screenplay By Jack Holtzman’ credit, at which point the music on the Blu-ray release is changed for the duration of the credits and the sex scene that follows.

Additionally, the DVD-r release is the full hardcore cut of the film – all of the sex scenes here include penetration shots and more graphic footage (that the SWV DVD-r says were mostly inserts, which is likely true though they’re more convincing than most inserts tend to be). The weird thing is that the second half of the film does contain hardcore footage – so for the first half, there’s no hardcore content, then for the second half there is. It’s very strange.

Hot Connections:

Up next is 1973’s Hot Connections, directed by James Hong using the James Young alias. Early in the film, a switchboard operator named Mary Collins find out that she’s pregnant and loses her job. The rat bastard in charge, Arnold Thaxton (Christopher Geoffries), has no sympathy at all for the plight of the modern woman. Arnold’s ex-wife Marilyn (Tally Wright), however, now leads The Woman’s Liberation Defense Center and she and her friends aim to payback all the men who have treated them like shit over the years. They come up with a plan to get Arnold canned and win Mary back her job. To do this, Marilyn puts into motion a plan wherein she’ll get pictures of Arnold doing the dirty deed with one of his employees!

While all of this is going on, Arnold’s much nicer assistant George Hanes (Jay Scott) is trying to figure out what all this women’s liberation stuff is all about and why his wife, who has joined up with this group, is letting lesbians go at it in their bedroom. Arnold eventually coaxes George, who can’t help but notice the figure on his secretary Angie (Rene Bond), to join him in his quest to lay as many of the women from the Defense Center as possible.

Hot Connections is an amusing mix of softcore sex, goofy comedy and skewed social commentary. It’s very much a product of its time and maybe not so politically correct, but it’s entertaining enough in its own screwball sort of way and you can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of some of the situations. Jay Scott is the funniest part of the show, as George he’s just awkward and seemingly out of his element no matter where he goes or what he does. It’s fun to see Rene Bond show up here, even if it’s in a supporting role rather than a starring role, while Christopher Geoffries plays the snake in the grass type rather well.

Note that this ‘enhanced edition’ of Hot Connections opens with an aerial of the Hollywood hills that isn’t on the original DVD-R release. The opening dialogue partially appears over this shot before cutting to the close up shot of the woman ranting. In the original, we just see the woman ranting and given that the shot of the hills has much better color and less print damage than the rest of the movie it’s likely that this has been added for this release and that it isn’t part of the original presentation.

There’s also some footage missing – after the scene where Rene Bond sits on her boss’ desk in that foxy red patent leather dress, on the DVD-r there’s a few seconds where the camera travels down the hall to Arnold Thaxton’s office. On the Blu-ray, we cut from Rene on the desk to Thaxton on the phone, the hallway footage isn’t there.

When Thaxton is playing nude mini-golf in his office, after putting the ball between the legs of his lady friend there’s a bit more footage on the DVD-r where he walks over to her and embraces her. This is missing on the Blu-ray.

Both films are given a Dolby Digital Mono sound mix, there are no alternate language options or subtitles provided nor is there a lossless audio option. The expected hiss is present here and there but generally speaking the levels are at least properly balanced and the dialogue is clear enough to understand.

The main extra on the disc is the inclusion of a vintage Uschi Digard arcade loop. Transferred from the original 8mm negative and presented in AVC encoded 1080p high definition, this is basically just ten-minutes of Ms. Digard taking off her clothes and fondling herself in bed for the camera. It looks quite nice, though as you can see from the screen caps below film sprockets have been added to each side of the frame for some reason.

Additionally, the disc includes newly created trailers for Cries Of Ecstasy, Invasion Of The Love Drones, Female Chauvinists and Hot Connections as well as animated menus and chapter selection. As this is a combo pack release we also get a DVD disc including standard definition versions of each movie and the same extras as are found on the Blu-ray disc. Accompanying the two discs is a full color insert booklet containing an essay on the two feature attractions by Cinema Sewer’s Robin Bougie.

The Final Word:

The Something Weird Video/Pop Cinema Blu-ray release of Female Chauvinists/Hot Connections offers decent upgrades over what we’ve seen in the past in the video department, but it would have been nice to have the original versions of the films rather than the ‘enhanced editions’ contained herein. Regardless, the movies are pretty entertaining and the inclusion of the bonus Uschi short is a nice plus.